A Merc's Work
by Ydarissep
Summary: Freelance mercenary Jenkins and his former Operator Lee work odd jobs just so they can get by. Can you really blame them? Set in the Armored Core V universe, follow the survival of this war-worn couple.
1. Never Done

The Stork was a loud machine. The dual rotors were the loudest thing he had ever heard – which is why he was grateful at the moment for his cockpit being mostly sound proof. Such was the blessing of owning his own Core designed to his specifications. He sat in his seat, a book from a time not so long ago within his lap. Everything was black around him (save for the little book-light), his systems set to reserve power – he couldn't even see the outside of his machine.

The Stork was bulky, but that was for its purpose. Below the two giant rotors on the sides were large compartments that held the parts of his Core. They were in the air, tethers suspending him below the Stork. They were flying to a city, though he wasn't sure which city it was; he didn't care enough to know the name of the city, all that matters is that he received payment for this mission.

Apparently every mercenary was being called to defend the Corporations. Every other mercenary was being called to attempt a coup in the city. They wanted the blood of some guy named 'Father'. It didn't matter; nothing mattered except for the pay.

One of his screens lit up suddenly and a dialog box popped up. The heading of the box was titled 'Elegance.' It was an audio only transmission from his companion, being carried on another Stork some distance infront of him. The line in the middle of the box began to spike as his companion spoke and he was greeted by that familiar female voice.

"Zeal," she began by saying. There was silence over the link as if she was waiting for him to respond. He counted the seconds it took for her to say anything else: one, two, three, fo-. "Zeal, we're almost there. How are you holding up?" He slowly closed his book and shrugged, reaching for the monitor and turning on the video. He was better at lying to someone's face.

"I'm awake, so I'm fine," he said in a tone that was supposed to mock his fake visage of exhaustion. Light assailed his eyes, one hand reaching up to rub his left eye as he issued a small yawn. He was attempting to lie to her. Her video loaded up, a small bar in the lower left corner filling quickly as the video was buffering to be real-time. She looked to believe him, at least he hoped. She wasn't a bad liar, either.

He stared at the face of a woman who looked too stressed for her own good. Her skin was pale (but that could have easily been from the bright light the visual feed). Her eyes were a dull green and her face was slowly becoming wrinkled. Some would be surprised to find that she was half-way through her thirties. Years as an operator took their toll on her, and she was cursed to wear the stress on her face and in her troubled dreams. Still, she managed to smile and that was all that mattered. He guessed, anyway.

He could almost feel her sincerity in that smile, but he knew she only did it because she thought it would make things better. It wasn't like they were killing people for a living. He managed to smile back, however. He was no-where near as aged as she had looked; in fact, he was not bothered by the mass executions they had taken part in. He was a borderline sociopath, but he realized that if he would not kill, he would not eat. If he did not kill, he would be killed. That and he wasn't in charge of other people's lives – only his own.

"That's good," she finally responded after a good ten seconds. He found that odd as it was longer than usual. She was pretty quick with her responses most of the time – not today, apparently. "You know, we may die this time. This is different than other missions we have taken on. We are fighting against actual pros this time. I'm cutting video feed; keep strictly to audio until we finish our mission." He nodded and his arms stretched upwards, his back arching inward as the video feed was cut, along with the rest of the comm-link.

He finished his stretching and reached forward in this prison he made for himself and flipped a few switches up. The inside of his machine began humming to life as he was assaulted by sounds from the outside. He could hear booms from flak and missiles exploding. He was thankful his pilot had been smart enough to buy plenty of flares for this mission, as well as an entire payload of Interceptor-class missiles. By the sounds of it, he was using some of them.

The cockpit lit up with a visual feed of the outside. His eyes stared forward and two targeting circles moved towards the Stork infront of them, targeting on Elegance and her pilot. There were flashes of light from all around as flak exploded and interceptor missiles smashed into surface-to-air variants. Bullets whizzed past, but there was very little they could do right now. He saw Elegance's Stork fire a creeping barrage of missiles which shot out and arced downward in an elegant manner (or at least as elegant as missiles killing people from above could be). He stared down at his book in his lap and gave a sigh, leaning forward to slide the hard-back tome under the seat. The audio feed opened back up again and his companion spoke once more.

"We're at the drop point," she called. Her voice was shaky and for a moment, he felt bad about their new operator making her come on his mission. Five seconds and she began to speak again. The Storks began swooping down and his hands reached forward to grab the control shafts of his machine. "We're dropping," she finally said as they rapidly reached ground level.

He felt the Stork yank up and gravity took over as the clanks were released. On the main screen, a red box popped up and a countdown began running as they got closer to ground. He engaged his boosters and his descent was slowed, though inertia caused his stomach to shift uncomfortably. The feet of his machine smashed into the ground and the frontal boosters engaged to slow his advance. He was scowling, he realized. In fact, he was downright pissed off.

"I hate this job," he said to nobody in particular, his stomach not yet settled. A few seconds after he said that, the audio feed suddenly clicked closed. He felt a little embarrassed, hoping he hadn't irritated his companion. The boosters in the back engaged and Zeal began moving forward. She had a light-weight type and he had a medium-weight type, so of course she had the advantage of mobility. In fact, her job was to run decoy for the majority part of the mission. The more kills they racked up, the more pay they would get.

Looking up, he saw both of the Storks turning away and beginning their retreat towards the left – the East. They had agreed on a pick-up point, but it was going to take a while to get there after the mission, relying on old maps from decades ago. Granted, they had to survive first. The Storks were instructed to wait for three hours at the rendezvous point after a certain time. Hopefully they would both make it there in time, if at all.

As he watched their pilots climbing in retreat, he saw other aircraft flying ever forward, seeking to get deeper into the city. He watched as one zoomed overhead, low to the ground. Suddenly, the tail exploded and began losing altitude, the AC it was carrying smashing into a nearby building. The pilot probably died upon collision while the Stork operator continued to fight for control. His fight was ended as a missile crashed into the cockpit, setting off a chain reaction and causing the entire craft to explode.


	2. Demolitions

He had one hour to work. One hour until he began his mission in this dammed city. One hour until she returned so he could advance their contract.

One hour was plenty of time, he knew. His Core was well hidden within the ruins of a building that was barely a few minutes further into the city. He smiled at this idea, remembering all the times he played hide and seek with his older siblings. He was always good at hiding from them, and those skills served him well on the battlefield.

The lights of his cockpit dimmed until there was only darkness and the subtle hum of his Core's systems going off. He felt the machine shake slightly as the hydraulics slowly lowered him into a resting position, power sapped and becoming conserved. There was a hissing as one of the tertiary systems engaged, the armrests and consoles of his control seat raising up and out of the way as the cockpit opened up.

He was assailed by sensations as he was exposed. He could smell the gunpowder in the air as it mixed with the dust; he could see explosions in the distance; he could hear the firing of weapons, too big for human hands; he could taste the ash; he could feel the tension in the air as it mixed with the cool atmosphere. Everything was enjoying themselves, begrudgingly or otherwise. He took all this in in the moment his cockpit door

He turned around and reached behind his seat, grabbing two large duffle bags and tossing them out onto the lowered door. He then pulled out a standard issue assault rifle, slung the strap over his shoulder and turned around. He slung the two bags over his bare shoulders, and silently thanked his Operator for suggesting he wear a tank top and light pants. He slapped on a belt with a three extra magazines and a knife.

Not as if he would need these things, but it was better to be prepared than not. He realized that he would be exhausted after he finished this small mission. He dropped a rope down from the opened cock pit and slowly slid down it, his gloves keeping his hands from becoming rope burned. As he reached the ground level, he reached into one of the bags and pulled out a visor. He pulled the visor over his eyes and his vision was suddenly encompassed by a greened view of what was in front of him. He wasn't detecting any life signs, and that was definitely a good sign.

He dashed out of the front of the ruining building, looking up and down the street and noting the fact that there was absolutely nobody. He noticed a few over-sized shell casings and a couple of ruined tanks. One of them looked as if the turret smashed down into the chassis while the others had a few large puncture wounds through their armor. He shuddered to think of what had caused such havoc, though he was more concerned of how deadly the pilot was than how deadly the weaponry was.

He ran into the next building after crossing the street and immediately began searching for a way into the basement. It took him several minutes to find such a portal, and moved towards the main support pillars. He figured it would only take a few explosives to bring down this entire building, and hopefully the other building would be as easy. Setting his rifle down against the pillar and tossing down one of the duffle bags, he began to work. He opened the bag, revealing many explosive with very deadly charges.

He began his meticulous work, sticking the explosives against the pillars and priming their charges. He checked his time and smiled. 45:34, 45:33, 45:32. As it reached 45:31, he hurried along and grabbed his equipment, moving onto the next building. His first bag was only half empty. He figured he would have plenty of time to plant charges on at least two more buildings then go back to his Core before his time was up.

Well, he was right. As he finished planting the last set of charges, he checked his time once more. 15:51 it read. Leaving his emptied duffle bags behind, he grabbed his rifle once more and began heading back towards the building hiding his machine. Pressing up against the building he just exited, he reached up with one hand and pushed a button on his visor. His view went from green to red-blue, searching for heat signatures.

Unfortunately, he found some. He counted three human figures. If he estimated, they were ten meters away. Switching his view back to night-vision, he noticed that they were all holding RPGs. Tank-hunters? No, more like AC hunters. He looked around at the alley behind him and cursed. It was a dead-end, except for the entrance into the building.

He cursed.

That was a mistake.

As he turned back around, he heard the hiss of a rocket-propelled grenade shooting off. He turned and ran back into alley, but he didn't make it to the door in time before the explosive was set off, taking a chunk out of the building he had intended to hide inside of. His ears rang from the explosion, but he had to push on. He ran through the doorway, and found that his feet were suddenly heavy. Maybe it was fear? Maybe he was just dazed. He couldn't put his finger on it.

He didn't dare chance turning around to shoot them – they obviously had superior firepower. He merely had to run, though he also couldn't leave them to his Core as it could be destroyed before he could engage his boosters and begin evading them. That left only one option.

He had to kill them.

He made it to the second story before he slammed himself against a wall, panting heavily. He breathed hard and let the sling of his rifle hold its weight as he reached into a pouch on his waist, popped it open and pulled out a small plastic bottle. With one hand, he shakily opened the bottle, emptied the single capsule into his hand and slapped his hand to his mouth. He gulped; though he had difficulty getting the thing to go down given his body was conserving fluids.

The effects would take a moment to set in. He checked the time once again: 14:20. He turned down towards the stairwell and realized that these people had three options. Cover both of the stairwells and wait for him to come down, send up one or two of their men while one stood guard, or to come up and try to get him. It was safe to assume that they all had at least a pistol for a side-arm. He had to admit, he was a little scared. It wouldn't be the first time.

And certainly not the last.

He heard the men below speaking a language that was not English. He assumed it was some form of Asian dialect – maybe Chinese or Japanese. He never had an ear for that sort of thing, forever doomed to never know one Asian language from another. His ear-bead suddenly came to life in a bit of feedback that caused him to wince.

"Elegance to Zeal," said that familiar female voice, "Norm, are you there?" His voice was barely a whisper as he responded.

"I'm pinned in an abandoned building," he said quickly. "I can't get to Zeal at the moment."

"Roger," she replied. "Will you be able to make the operation time?" He grinned at the question, feeling the effects of the capsule slowly taking hold of him. He kept his silence, thinking. After five seconds, she started to reply again, only for him to interrupt her.

"Yes, I'll be ready. I suggest cutting the link; you don't want to hear this." Without another word, there was a soft click as the communication link was cut. He tossed the emptied pill bottle down the stairwell and began running on the carpeted floor towards the next stairwell. He grabbed his weapon again and found himself face-to-face with one of the men as he was coming up the stairs.

The tank-hunter was too slow. His reaction was quicker, swinging his assault rifle to bear and immediately aiming the weapon at point-blank range to the half-helmet the tank-hunter was wearing. He tugged the trigger and released five shots. The first two smashed into her helmet, sending it flying off. The next two were fatal with one in the throat and the other through the chin. The third was simply good measure, penetrating through the spine.

With a sense of sensory perception, the now-dead hunter fell in slow motion. He turned around and headed towards the first stairwell again, knowing that he would either encounter them here, or they would go towards where they comrade was shot. His first guess was the correct one.

Once again, he was faster. His weapon rose up and his finger squeezed the trigger. He emptied his clip this time into the surprised couple. One of them managed to fire off their pistol a couple of times, but it missed pitifully. The other was about to fire off their RPG, only to have the shot be misdirected to the side and out a nearby window. While he registered a flat-line on both of his targets, he still jerked the combat knife out of its sheath while holding the rifle with one hand.

As they hit the floor he was upon the one with the pistol. The blade of his knife slashed across his targets throat, causing them to gurgle blood and reach up for their neck with the little strength they had left. The one with the RPG was futilely reaching for their pistol as he was pulling himself off of their finished off kin. He walked slowly towards the last target, stomping on their foot and shoving his combat knife down and into the hunter's side.

With a sickening twist, then another, he yanked the blade out. With the look of a murderer upon his young visage, he pulled himself off and began making his way back downstairs. Zeal was waiting for him, after all.

He climbed himself up into the cockpit and rested his rifle behind his seat where it belonged. The hatch to his cockpit slowly closed, as he rested back into his seat. Reaching back with one hand, he grabbed a small cord near the head of his seat while pushing up his hair in the back with the other. He plugged the cord into the small socket in the middle of his neck and shuddered at the feeling of once again being interfaced with his Core.

Things began to light up all around him. There was a soft humming as the arms to his seat lowered down and a keypad rose up between his feet. He reached forward to the keypad and put in a combination of numbers and letters.

JU2504SC.

Things suddenly became more alive as his core powered up further. He could feel himself slowly rising up as the hydraulics were engaged. As the monitors engaged, he looked around and smiled. He checked the operations time one last time.

One minute, fifteen seconds. He grabbed the control sticks on the armrests, engaged his boosters and began moving into position in the middle of the large street. Ten lanes total. A massive road, fit for his purposes.

And in front of him? The buildings he had chosen to destroy.


End file.
